This sport we love is loud. It is heavy handed, a picture of excess and consumerism featuring high-drama competition between lavish-living millionaires in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. As the entertainment industry does, it sensationalises the daily lives of these players, finding outrage and controversy in their most mundane acts (especially if they’re black). Football is loud, at least it was before the pandemic.
This ever-growing unmovable beast of a sport was forced to halt last year, an event which threatened the industry. Decisions were made to keep football alive, and these decisions have spun webs that will take years to unravel. During the Euros, we saw the small-scale effects of these decisions, namely in the fatigue of the players, but for them and for fans, managers and journalists, the year of Covid, the year of quiet, will bring consequences we are yet to see.
Lost In Nothingness
Football stopping in March 2020 commenced a period of prolonged angst and desperation for distraction. As fans, we were left only to our speculation. How long could it be before football comes back? Six months? A year? What would be the point of playing without fans? How many clubs can survive this? The pandemic made us question the most fundamental aspects of the sport which we assumed were taken for granted. Without the strict structure and routine of club football, we were lost in the wilderness to imagine what this sport would be.